USA vs Bulgaria

2nd round of the National League and a match between the USA and Bulgaria which will be held in China.

There are four groups and each week four countries will be the hosts, so everyone to play vs everyone and have home matches, which is fair enough. In one of the groups this week take part China(the hosts), Bulgaria, the USA and Argentina. Bulgaria beat China 3:2, and the same result happened in the other match, where Argentina were leading 2:0 and were so close to clear win in straight sets, but finally lost the third set and the match 2:3.

I will try to give some arguments about my tip here. First I will start with my country. Bulgarian team is without our main start Tsvetan Sokolov who has planned his surgery in the beginning of June, so we have to deal with the National league and the World Championship without him. This is a big blow for our chances to make something big in the World Championship where we are hosts. Nikolay Nikolov (blocker) is also missing in China, but that's not so huge problem, because we have good replacements in this zone. Without Sokolov we have to rely on Boyan Yordanov who is finally part of our national team after 10 years missing period, because of injuries, lack of practice or coach decisions. He is in good form in his club, but only Nikolay Uchikov is his replacement and I don't think he is the best option, he's not reliable in the biggest matches. Against China both of them took part- Boyan in the first 3 games, while Uchikov finished the match and their performance was okay, but China is on totally different level in comparison with the USA. What I saw is that we still make a lot of service errors and our receiving is far away from stable. USA coach John Sparrow is not blind and he can use that without much problems with such high and strong players in his team, using fast service and good play in block. It was interesting that China made more blocks than us, which is not only strange, but shameful, because that's one of our weapons to win more points and matches. Our team is a mix of younger and older players with more experience. Some of the players are far away from top form, but the worst thing is that they are from the main line-up like Todor Skrimov, Georgi Bratoev or Valio Bratoev. I will be really impressed if we take a point or more against the USA and Argentina.

USA are without their main star Matthew Anderson in China, but his replacement Benjamin Patch.. what to tell about him- he was simply brilliant against Argentina in such a close match. He scored 23 points and took a huge part in the comeback from 0:2 to 3:2. All the first 3 sets were so close, both teams played so well in close games point by point. Jeffrey Jendryk and Benjamin Patch turned the third set with brave play on service and in attack. Taylor Sander was also unstoppable with 19 points. Argentina are just amazing in defense and that's the reason to be equal to the USA. That's the reason I am sure Bulgaria can't stay close to the USA in the result tomorrow and we will be beaten badly maybe with 3:0 or 3:1. The odds for the USA -1.5 Sets AH are too low for me, 1.55, that's the reason I chose points here. -10.5AH is amazing offer for me, USA can do it in two sets if I have to be honest. They were brilliant in defense and block, only weakness were the mistakes on service. I see them big favorites here at this time of the tour.